One Foot in Front of the Other
by AliceTheBrave
Summary: 'All he has ever had- all he was ever allowed to keep- was people. But people aren't things and they can leave, and they can be lost, and they can bite and fight and cry and each of these things will burn so much, much worse than any fire that takes away just things. He cannot let himself keep things but he cannot seem to keep his people either.'
1. Pilot

Sam liked his life, generally.

Sure some classes were boring and some professors damn near infuriating but Sam had always enjoyed learning and this new life of his had surrounded him with more opportunities for that than he'd ever imagined he'd have.

The people around him were hungry for knowledge and improvement in a way he had always thought made him a freak. An outlier in a world where everyone else kept moving past the things that could have been better simply because there were better things to do.

All of the years of arguments and torn books and shunned and shamed ideas had left him angry and desperate with the sense that there was something wrong with him.

There was never any room for questions under Dad's roof, no matter which roof it was.

But he'd found his place here, where these people were just as eager and just as hungry as he was.

He'd found friends, real friends, that were his age and that he thought he could stay in contact with for more than a few months at a time.

He'd fallen in love.

Really, properly fallen in love.

They'd taken their time and started as friends and for the first time in his life Sam took his time falling in love because he knew that he _could_.

Jess would still be there to kiss tomorrow if he didn't do it tonight.

And that surety more than anything eased his anger.

He could spend his whole life angry at Dad for the way that he had raised him, and some part of him likely would, but it didn't matter anymore.

His life was here where books were sacred, and questions expected, and love could take its time, and nobody ever got to give him orders again.

He thought about the way the light seemed so much warmer when you got the chance to step out of the shadows. He thought of warmth, and love, and he thought of his brother.

He thought about how he knew that deep down this was all Dean had ever wanted.

As much as he scorned and jeered at all these 'boring white fence freaks', Sam knew that Dean desperately envied those lives.

All Dad had ever given them was fear and the dark and gun smoke but all Dean had ever wanted was love and the sun on his torn up skin.

Dean would never have those things. He was too afraid of losing whatever illusory affection Dad could scrounge out of the dirt for him. It was the only thing he'd ever known. The only thing he could count on.

Sam stood in the sunlight in a grassy quad and listened to the laughter of his friends and his first gentle love and deep in his heart he felt so bone crushingly sorry for him.

Dean had given everything he had to give Sam the chance to realize this life.

If Dean had never looked out for him and loved him and snuck him books from the library Sam would never have had the strength to leave.

Sam could leave because he knew that Dean, at least, would still love him.

Dean never had that guarantee.

And no book in the world could tell Sam how to save his brother from his own empty heart.


	2. Dead Man's Blood

If you asked Sam it was always Dean and Dad growing up.

Dad trusted Dean with everything- with the lead on every hunt as soon as they were old enough, with the sawed off shot gun when they were left to fend for themselves, with the keys to the car, with his journal, with his _life._

Dean trusted Dad.

That was the end of it from that side. There was no caveat, no need to specify the way he had to on Dad's end. It was a given that there were things that Dad didn't trust Dean with, but Dean- Dean trusted Dad with everything he had and everything he was.

Maybe that was because he never had anything else. There's nothing to hold back when the only person you trust is the only person you have.

That was if you asked Sam though.

If you asked Dean it wasn't the partnership Sam had imagined it to be.

They weren't partners- certainly not equals- and Dad didn't have any special faith in him.

Every time Dad gave him a job, gave him the lead, let him take the reins, told him to guard the door, ordered him to pick up the gun- it wasn't trust.

It was just another test.

He had been tested his whole life.

Every day started and ended with an appraising gaze, a quality check, a step by step list of 'have to's' and 'failed to's' and he was so terrified to fail because 'all it takes is one mistake Dean' and he had to 'look out for Sam, Dean, that's your job' and it was his only job and all it took was one mistake and he'd have failed his only goddamn job and he'd be all alone in that cold and dark and there would only be him and his shotgun and the things that were always waiting for him in the dark if he didn't latch every door, lock every window, draw every curtain, salt every entrance, check, check, check-

Anyway, Dean was never Dad's relief. He was never his favorite. He was just what John had to work with in lieu of anything that was worth a damn. He needed a unit of trained soldiers and all he got was a scared four-year-old.

He made do.

Dean forced himself to keep up.

Because it wasn't about Dean. It wasn't about protecting Dean, or teaching Dean, or god forbid trusting Dean.

It was about Sam.

If you asked Dean it was always about Sam.

Every test, every fight, every crushing failure, every time Dad put the fear of a God that he never believed in into him-

It was all about Sam.

It was never about making Dean the perfect hunter. It was about making him Sam's perfect bodyguard. The Hunter aptitude was just a prerequisite for the job.

Every shadow, every stumble, every kind meaning lady that smiled at a chubby cheeked toddler could be a Thing in disguise and Dean was taught to be ready, to be on guard, to smile back as he gripped his knife- too big for his hands that gripped tight to Sam's even smaller ones- under his jacket until the danger passed.

But the danger never passed.

Dean was eight when he started sleeping with a knife under his pillow.

Sam wasn't allowed to touch knives until he was nine.

Dean was the one to teach him to throw them correctly. He'd already been a qualified expert for years.

It was all for Sam.

So when Sam left... he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do.

Sam left to find the world- and he burned Dean's to the ground on his way out.

Sam left and Dad looked at Dean like he didn't know him anymore.

What are you supposed to do with a guard dog that suddenly has nothing to guard?

So he gave him more jobs. More tests. To see what he could be good for now that the only thing he'd ever been useful for wasn't practical anymore.

And the Hunting thing was passable.

He was clumsy at first- kept looking around for a big floppy haired shadow, kept accidentally trying to book one more bed than they needed, kept cracking a joke that he knew Dad wouldn't laugh at, kept leaving room for a partner that wasn't there when he searched a room.

But he was passable.

So when they were all back together Dean wasn't sure how to feel.

Because he loved them all together. He had missed knowing where he stood, what he was supposed to do, what he was _for-_

But the thing was that Sam didn't get it.

He didn't see that everything Dad did was for him. To protect him.

So maybe he was cryptic and overbearing and never- not once no matter how much Dean begged and pleaded silently for anything, just a word- explained what it was that was going to happen to them more than one step ahead. So maybe he didn't trust them.

But he did it for Sam.

It was all for Sam.

He always smiled at Sam like that.

Like he was proud of him, and sorry for him, and scared for him.

He only smiled at Dean as if he was going to shake his hand and congratulate him on doing his job right.

Sam was all mushy feelings and girl-talks because he could afford to be.

Because Dad let him be.

And now Dad looked at him in a way that spoke of shared suffering and a part of Dean was bitter because no amount of suffering was greater than another, but he never once got to cry for his.

Sam railed against Dad's overbearing control.

Dean craved it. It was as close as he got to approval.

Sam had Dean's unwavering affection- Dean has done his damndest to make sure he knew it- so he could deal with losing some of Dad's.

Dean couldn't afford to lose anything. He'd had to scrounge and grovel and crawl his way through blood and dirt to get what he had.

Dad loved both of his boys.

It was just that sometimes he got so deep in his hurt that all he saw was a baby crying in a house on fire and the only other person in the world who could carry him.

In Dad's mind Sam had never changed from that infant into a man.

Dean has never stopped carrying him.

And now as Sam and Dad got in each other's faces Dean could see that Sam was right.

Dad's eyes were clouded by the smoke of a fire that had burned out decades ago.

It was time that Dean stopped running through it just because Dad said to.


	3. Hunted

Dad had no right.

After everything he'd ever asked Dean to do, ever expected him to do, everything Dean had ever done in his name and at his will- this he had no right to ask.

Because all Dean ever lived for- all he'd ever been and done and wanted was to protect Sam.

All Dad had ever forced him through was to protect Sam.

And now he had ordered him to kill Sam.

Dean had no illusions of choice- this was an order a sure as any other. Even if he said it through tears and a trembling voice so unfamiliar to Dean.

Not that he'd never seen his father cry. Dean had stood by his father's side through the darkest depths of his career. Through the drinking, the death, the failures, the fear of it all. Dean had been there standing at the door with a shotgun in his hands as his father fell apart behind him. Dean had whispered to him for hours- 'It'll be okay, Dad. It'll be okay.'- so often that he had learned not to be afraid. One of them had to be ready at all times and if it wasn't going to be Dad it was going to be him.

Because once Dad got himself together it would be as if none of it had ever happened and Dean had better have made sure everything was up to standards in the meantime or God help him. As soon as Dad got his bearings it was back to the status quo. Perfection or failure. And failure meant death. Or worse- Sam's death.

Because the only thing Dad ever expected from Dean was to protect his brother. It was what he was trained for since the day the baby was placed in his arms and he was told to run, run, _run._

It was why he stood every midnight watch in the shadows of flickering motel lights.

It was why he learned to clean his guns perfectly before he'd memorized his multiplication tables.

It was why he always kept a knife under his pillow and an arm stretched toward his brother's bed in the dark of the night. Because you should always be afraid of the dark and even at the age of eight, he knew he'd rather lose that arm than be too far away to get to Sam if he needed help.

Dean had learned to always think of Sam first and everything else later. He'd never done anything in his whole life that wasn't rooted in Sam's best interest.

And now Dad was telling him that if he couldn't do that- if somehow, he couldn't manage to do that one damn thing that he had been trained his entire life to do- that he would have to kill Sam.

He was telling him to put him down.

His own brother.

The only thing he'd ever had that he didn't have to bleed to earn.

The only thing he'd ever had to protect.

The only person in the whole world that looked at him and saw something to be admired. To be loved. Something worth keeping.

And Dad was crying.

Crying for _him._

He'd never done that before- not once.

He'd nearly cried for Sam that one-time Dean had nearly let him be killed by that Striga.

But he'd never cried for Dean.

Dean didn't know why he would start now. Not when he'd lost all faith in him. Dean who couldn't keep his brother from leaving. Dean who dragged him back into the dark after he'd managed to scrape his way out. Dean who couldn't protect him from anything at all- much less an army of demons.

But then maybe he wasn't crying for Dean but because of him.

Because Dad loved Sam more than anything.

And now he'd had to go and order Dean to do something so terrible.

Because Dean was a failure.

Because Dean couldn't protect Sam.

Because Sam was having visions, and they were fighting demons, swarms of them, and there was so much blood everywhere- all of the time- even in his _dreams-_

And because Dad must know that Dean is so, so lost.

And one of them has to be ready at all times.

And Dad knew it wasn't going to be him.

And he saw then that he was too pathetic for it to be Dean.

And Dean wouldn't have what it takes to keep Sam by his side for much longer.

Because eventually he'd see him for what he was just like everyone else.

And what's a useless shell of a brother compared to the power that would turn Sam to the dark side?

Nothing.

And Dean knew even as he told Sam- even as he saw the concern shift to anger in his eyes- that there was nothing he could do- nothing he had that would convince Sam to stay.

And he knew that his Dad had overestimated him still- even in that whirlwind moment of what must have been soul crushing disappointment, he thought that he could at least count on Dean to put Sam down if he took a turn.

But Dean knew he couldn't do it.

The mere thought made him want to vomit.

Dean was too weak to even follow that last order. To clean up his own mess.

Because he didn't have what it took to keep Sam safe.

Because he didn't have the strength to end him when his failure pushed Sam too far.

Because he was nothing and could do nothing even now as Sam looked at him like he might kill him.

Dean wished that he would.

Dean wished to God that he would.


	4. Heart

It shouldn't have been like this.

Dean missed the days when everything made sense.

When monsters were evil and hunters were good and his life's purpose was to kill the bad things second and protect his brother first.

But now there were hunters that were evil. Hunters that were too similar to him, guys like Gordon, who he saw so much of what he could be in- what he might be if it weren't for Sam.

And there were monsters that- they were- well he didn't know.

He just didn't know anymore.

Because girls like this, like Madison, who were smart and witty and strong and had their life figured out, girls who knew what they were and what was right and who was worth their time, girls who saw Sam and really saw him- they couldn't be evil.

Girls who looked so horrified when they saw what they could do- people who found out that they were capable of killing and who's first reaction was selfless sacrifice.

People who saw in themselves what Dean saw in the mirror everyday and were sickened to death.

People that good couldn't possibly deserve to be put down like a dog.

But here she was taking up Dean's gun and clutching it to her chest like it was her only link to her own autonomy.

And there she stood pushing it into Sam's chest crying, begging, 'Sam, please, it has to be you. I can't do it on my own.'

Because she was scared and she was crying and she was still going to do it because she couldn't bear the thought of causing anymore pain.

Because how in the hell was Dean going to sleep at night without thinking of every creature that had ever begged for its life, for its soul, saying 'you're wrong', 'I didn't mean to', 'please, please, please-'' And how many of them lived scared to death and disgusted in their own skin but were just this side of cowardly enough to keep breathing.

And of how wrong his skin felt when he stood in the sun himself.

Dean missed when things made sense.

When monsters were evil and he could protect Sam from everything.

But now monsters were behind his eyes in the mirror and he couldn't protect Sam from anything, certainly not a crying girl pushing a gun into his hands and begging 'please'.

He'd take that burden from him if he could. Tried to. Cried to.

But Sam was never a coward the way that Dean was.

Sam would do this for her even if it killed him.

And Dean couldn't protect him from this duty, from his own infallible kindness. From his heart that bled for monsters that didn't know how they came to this place where they stood covered in other people's blood and crying in the moonlight.

From not allowing himself to bury his conscience in a haze of blind 'black and white', 'right and wrong', 'good and evil', 'human and not' like they'd been taught to, like Dean desperately wanted to every moment of every day that led closer to a burning Armageddon he couldn't even fathom but knew was coming closer with each breath and each time he failed to protect Sam.

He kept failing Sam just like he'd failed their father all his life.

And John wasn't here to punish him.

So Dean had taken up punishing himself.

So he kept his eyes on Sam even as his little brothers face glistened with tears and so, so much pain.

He kept his eyes on Sam even as he took the gun and he could see a part of his soul flake off behind his eyes.

He kept his eyes on Sam even as his shoulders heaved in a wrecked attempt to steel himself as he walked into the next room.

He kept his eyes on the door even as they stung and he felt the tears on his cheeks.

He kept his eyes on the door even as the gunshot made him flinch.

He wouldn't let himself blink.

He wouldn't let himself run from his own mistakes.

This was his failure and he must bear witness to it.

Because he failed to protect Sam from this pain, and the least he could do is force himself to feel even a fraction of it.

God knows he deserved so much more.

Because hunters weren't always good and monsters weren't always bad.

And Dean didn't know which one he was anymore.


End file.
